She Claps!

Charleston Chickens All Percussion Band

It all started with this book and CD:

It is very very funny and we love it so. It is the kind of children's music that is appealing to little ones and easily tolerable for adults. As with most things Sandra Boynton, there is wit and intelligence in her lyrics. And famous people sing them. People like Kevin Kline, and Meryl Streep. Also Erik Stoltz and Scott Bacula--not quite so famous, and yet funny nonetheless. You can listen to the whole CD for free right here. We know all the lyrics by heart, even the girls who got to enjoy it in the car with us last Christmas when we drove from Chicago to South Dakota. They love it. They might even admit it without rolling their pretty little teenage eyes.

It's all thanks to Grandma, who first spotted the set at the Chicago Symphony gift shop. She had season tickets last year and bought us a book/CD every trip it seems. Boynton has four of these sets now and we have them all. Philly Chickens is still our favorite, but this one is closing in:
This one is especially cool because it has actual musicians singing and not just movie stars. Our favorite on this one is the title hit, performed by John Popper and Blues Traveler. Alison Krause, Spin Doctors, Five for Fighting, and the one-and-only Weird Al Yankovic are featured, as well. There is this weird "Cows from Another Planet" theme running through it with 3 or so song clips, but we just skip those. Other than "Dog Train", our very favorite song of late has got to be "Pots and Pans" performed by the Bacon Brothers (yes, Kevin Bacon and his brother) We love it so much, it inspired this impromptu jam session in the kitchen. I'm not sure they are musically inspired, but they are certainly musically inclined.
I'll go with that.

I Won the Sandbox!

Not true.
But I have fond memories of that hilarious Ernie and Bert sketch from Sesame Street circa 1970. Check it out here.
So, we didn't win it. Nor did we eat it. But, we did buy one from Target with Ben's birthday moolah from Grandma & Papa, Great-Grandmo and the McCollums. Thanks guys!

Putting it together was ridiculously easy. Allen wrenches and those little internal nuts you just pop into the predrilled holes are brilliant. Ben and Will were very into helping build the sandbox. "I'm a worker!" Ben makes sure you know his role when he's pretending. We're used to "workers" around here with all the new construction going on. There is a new house going up (well, it's up, they are currently roofing) in the lot that aligns with our backyard. So, this was a great project for us right now. The best part was when upon opening the box, we found TRUSSES! Watching the crane lift and place the trusses on the new houses is the most exciting part of the building process for the boys. So, it was ultra cool to have our own to lift and place. "I'm a crane!"

Now that it's placed and filled, it's been non-stop sand play here. As the ultimate open-ended play material, I am happily observing and enjoying the boys' interactions with both the sand and each other.

Oh, be still my constructivist heart!

Ben is FOUR! (How did this happen?)

We had a party today after the Nap. As requested, there were balloons. And hats. Presents, naturally. Singing, blowing of candles (one single blow this year--yippee!), and the most awesome yellow digger cake you ever saw. It did not look like this:

This is the inspiration, however. Ben saw this cake in Family Fun magazine and HAD to have it. No matter how gently I would try to lead him toward something a bit more baker-friendly, his mind was made up. The baking part wasn't that tough, really (even though Family Fun tells you to use a frozen pound cake and some twinkies to put it together!) It was the decorating and assembling that was tricky.

Due to ongoing intestinal "issues", the boys are both on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. The SCD is also a popular alternative treatment for autism, so a two-fer for us. The diet is all about healing the gut, whereby any stray molecule of an illegal food could screw up the delicate balance of good/bad bacteria in your intestines and you're back at square one, so you must, according to Elaine Gottschall, the diet's author, follow the diet with "fanatical adherence". There are no complex carbs allowed on this diet. The idea is a bit daunting at first. So that's no sugar, no grains, no starch. We are already also dairy-free. Holy Moly! Now, go forth and make cake--ha!

But, I did it! It's banana cake with honey frosting. The wheels, dozer, and excavator claw are made from pumpkin muffins. I decorated with raisins and fruit leather. Wheeeeeee! It's not exactly magazine quality stuff, but the man of the hour was satisfied. Along with his partner in crime, who has requested both a dump truck and a crane truck for his birthday. Um, yeah. We'll see about that.

Other highlights included trucks, trains, and cars, naturally, with a little bit of wistful storytelling of May 9th, 2004. I knew it would go by fast, but wow. This blog helps keep me ever-mindful to soak it all up. Every insane little minute.

And my favorite part of today wasn't captured on film, but I will record it here since I bet it's the last birthday he lets me do it. I rocked my baby to sleep in our rocker with his head on my chest. Sigh.

Eye Color Update!

So, here we are at six months. Back in November, I speculated what color these peepers would end up looking like. I was surprised that they were not the deep brown her brothers' were at that age. I mused on the possibility of them staying blue, and even found a study that said it was possible, even if neither parent had blue eyes. But, hooray! They're greenish! Just like her mama--see?

Now we get to wait for her hair to grow. :)

Time in a bottle

I am having so much fun being a mama. Cliche or not, this time in my life is just so rewarding. It can seem horribly stressful and oh-so-dramatically frustrating to have 3 under 4 years old, but Man, when it's good, it's goooood! So, here's a snapshot of how I'd like to remember this time. Idyllic, ain't it?

RDI update

Many of you have asked how things are going with Ben and RDI. I've been kind of stuck searching for a direct answer for that question. I'm fairly sure most people would just like to hear "great!" or "doing fine!" as a reply, but that would be a silly expectation when the person you've asked is ME.

There are stages in RDI. Ben is in Stage 1. This might be helpful information if development happened in a vacuum and progressed strictly linearly without other details mucking up the water. As with most kids on the Spectrum, Ben has "splinter skills"--things he's really good at and are developmentally appropriate (or above) for his age--right there along with his deficits. It makes chronological, linear progression sort of difficult to assess. And, you know what? I *like* that!

This is not a "one size fits all" deal here. RDI helps us help BEN. With all the detail-mucking bits and pieces and a couple of siblings thrown in for fun. It's really been a mind-shifting sort of experience for Mark and I. And it continues. We're learning to talk less and listen more--being *mindful* of each moment and slowing down to appreciate, evaluate, give opportunities.

Okay, here's an example of something we're...I don't want to say "working on", as it's not like an isolated 'skill'...let's say "giving focus to". 'Eye contact' is something many traditional therapies for children with autism have as a big number one goal. And many children with autism can learn/be trained to give eye contact when requested ("look at me" "eyes on me") and some even can learn which social contexts require eye contact and will do it at the appropriate times. What most of these children will *not* learn by meeting this skill specific goal, is WHY people look at each other when they interact.

RDI examines this in a much deeper, more meaningful way. It recognizes and appreciates the important piece of eye contact is not the act of looking, but the art of connecting. Dr. Gutstein calls it "experience sharing". Looking at others' faces is not just 'polite' or part of social conventions, it provides INFORMATION. It conveys agreement, disagreement, surprise, joy, anger, wonder, sympathy, interest, determination, distaste, silliness, affection, love etc. etc. etc. Knowing the names of these emotions is not important, though. The important part is that by looking at each other (RDI calls this "referencing"), we can connect.

So, Mark and I provide as many opportunities for Ben to reference us for information as we can think of. Ben's a great helper and loves to do "grown up" jobs like sorting the laundry, putting away the dishes, etc. He also loves turn-taking, one-on-one games. These have turned out to be excellent times for us to *stop talking* (hard for me!) and provide information through our faces and/or body language. So, instead of saying "not there" when Ben tries to put the sock in the shirt pile, I might gasp, wave my hand, or shake my head vigorously so he'll check out my face for more information. I might pause mid-sentence or start to stutter as another way to invite a look. Mark has this whole non-verbal routine down with Ben turning on and off the water for him while he shaves. It has been amazing. Without any direct 'teaching' of this, Ben has figured out the value of eye contact and social referencing!

We are simultaneously "giving focus to" several different goals other than experience sharing and social referencing with our complex little dude. And each goal builds on the others, of course. So, Ben will eventually understand how to regain someone's attention, reestablish a connection that's lost, repair a conversation breakdown, and other subtleties of interaction that we all take for granted. And all we're doing is providing the opportunities and environment for his brain to take it in. It sounds so simple, and according to our consultant, it's something we've been doing naturally all along, but there is worth in KNOWING and really understanding the innards of why and how. Learning it together has been really good for Mark and I, and having a common "language" to talk about it is something I hadn't expected to be so valuable.

We're at the very beginning of this journey, of course, with a long road ahead, but so far, we're really enjoying it. And it ought to be that way, don't you think? Parenting mindfully *and* joyfully?--um, yeah, keep me signed me up for that.

A farewell

Goodbye, Dear Friend.
Dennis R. Rich
February 11, 1971-April 1, 2008

So loved and missed.
May perpetual light shine upon you.

Dennis' blog

Rosebank Farms

Last Saturday we took a trip to Rosebank Farms on Johns Island for their Egg'straordinary Egg'stravaganza (heh). They advertised a hay ride, an egg hunt, an appearance by the Easter Bunny, and the regular farm staples--ducks, pigs, cow, horse (miniature!), turkeys, chickens and naturally--bunnies. There were also supposed to be refreshments available and, best of all, kids three and under were FREE! Woo hoo!

As is often the case if we don't start getting ready to leave at least 4 and a half hours before we need to, we were late. We had missed the hay ride. And the egg hunt. And the Big Bunny. Well, we sort of missed him.

And yet, the half-full glass nearly reached the brim by the time our visit was through. Here are some of the highlights:

Chasing bunnies all over the farm.



Getting beautiful fresh flowers for our Easter dinner hosts. (Thanks, Millers!)


Receiving jelly beans from the farm worker who felt sorry for the boys with the empty Easter baskets.


Giving hugs to the severed head of the Easter bunny who was abandoned among the asparagus, green beans, and parsley in the farm market. (We had already met the bottom half of EB near the refreshments table.)


The best part of all, naturally, was how the farmer (the half-dressed EB, himself) let Ben and Will drive the tractor. Well, not actually drive it, but they got to pretend like they were. And this tractor made those lawn mowing tractors at Lowe's look pretty weenie, I might add.

So, all in all, our Easter egg cup truly runneth-ed over.
Thanks, Rosebank Farms! bawk bawk.

"Long Live Play"

I stole this title from our good friend, and my former early childhood colleague, Kiersten (aka Kiki). She left a comment on my other blog referring to this photo of Will. You can go read it here.

She didn't know the story, per se, but she knows me and how I roll, so (did you catch that hip phrase "how I roll"? I am so cool.) she understood the significance of the photo and that there was probably a story behind it.

It's a short story, with a smallish plot, but it has a happy ending. It goes like this:
Will likes to use blocks, beads, cars, green beans, etc. to line up and make trains. Here he is playing with the blocks from our Music Blocks machine.
While making trains and crashing them, and making them again, Will made a marvelous discovery--he could make a square. Very very exciting news that caused him to jump up and shout "h'ray!" and also, inadvertently, knock awry his creation.

This made Will a bit sad and he commented, "My 'quare is gone!" With a bit of encouragement, he spent several concentrated moments on the task of reconstruction.

Until, success! A more cautiously reserved "h'ray!" was expressed and properly caught on 'film'. This was a very proud moment, indeed. And one of a million moments that I am so privileged to witness as a stay-at-home-mama. So blessed am I.

ADDENDUM:

Oops! Got all misty-eyed there and lost the initial intent of this post.

So, you see, I did not ever sit Will down and introduce the concept of 'a square'. He's two. He's spent the better part of his life figuring out the world and how to communicate about it. Descriptors like colors and shapes tend to be a big part of that.

Being a human being, Will was born with the drive to connect with others. It starts with baby goo-goo eyes, watching our every move. Then the coos and cries and body language that develop while learning to interpret how best to get needs met. Smiles, giggles, and squeals bring delightful results, while cries, grunts, and wails prompt the offering of comfort. Being surrounded by speech, Will observed and imitated. He started with labels for objects. Added labels for actions. And on and on.

And he did this, learning how to talk thing, all without anyone showing him how. It is fairly well accepted that babies learn this very complex idea of language all on their own. Nobody teaches a baby how to do that. Is it too far-reaching to expect that learning adjectives (shapes, colors, etc.), in order to describe something to another person (mama, perhaps), is just another natural occurrence? I don't think so.

But the story above is about more than the fact that Will can name a shape. If I were more in 'teacher mode' I could spout off the developmental milestones, cognitive objectives, and geometric principles displayed. I'd wow you with my professional jargon and maybe throw in a few educator acronyms for good measure.

Basically, though, it boils down to this: play is how we learn. Just how babies 'play' with language (volume and pitch of cries, babbling, facial expressions) in order to master it, kids 'play' with concepts (um, let's say geometry) to gain mastery.

In fact, play is how I learn best. I got a new camera for my birthday last year. How did I learn how to take nice pictures? No, it wasn't the instruction manual. Nope, didn't take a class. I played around with it. Tried different settings. Did something cool. Couldn't figure out which buttons made it do that (My 'quare is gone!) So, I messed around with it some more until I figured it out.

And isn't this how we all learn new things--cooking a new recipe, trying a new software program, sampling a new craft? Can you think of a better way to pick up a new instrument? a sport?

Me neither.

So, Long Live Play! H'ray!

Think Capistrano!

For the past several weeks there has been a bird who arrives every morning around 7 and attempts to fly through our windows. You can hear his beak hit the panes throughout the house as he tap tap taps while flapping fruitlessly until his feet gain purchase either on the sill or the screen. He is persistent and not completely clueless, as he will try one window than another. The boys love running around the house from room to room following the bird. "He's back!" "He's in the kitchen!" "He's at the front door!" Great early morning entertainment.

We've mused on why the bird is so persevering. Does he really find our home that inviting? Does he know we keep millet and sunflower seeds in the pantry? Did he once nest in a tree where our house is now standing? Perhaps it's one of those inborn, imprinting things that is somehow programmed into his tiny prehistoric brain--"I must return to 33 latitude, -80 longitude!" Sort of like the swallows of Capistrano , which, funnily enough, are due to return
tomorrow--St.Joseph's Day.

I know very little about the phenomenon, but was reminded by, of all things, Grover from Sesame Street. The Elmo's World portion of the show was devoted to penguins. Grover had traveled to the South Pole and was trying to encourage the penguins to fly somewhere warm. He was stymied when the penguins told him they could not fly. "Well, try! You need to flap your little birdie wings, like this!" While he and the birds are madly flapping away he shouts out encouragingly, "Think Capistrano!", which the penguins join him in chanting before realizing it's hopeless and they dive into the ocean for a swim.

Man, I love the Muppets.

Mark thinks I ought to post video of our feathered friend, but for now all I have are these stills.
We may have to build him a bird house.

Goodbye Snow, Hello Strawberries!

I could have titled this "Why I love the South."
You saw my last post, yes? All that snow and coldness and hats and mittens and boots? Well, not here in South Cackalackee, no sir. On this fine March afternoon, it was strawberry picking time. With giant, juicy all natural (no pesticides or other icky chemicals on these guys) berries! See?
The boys were pretty impressed with the rows and rows of strawberry plants. We had one plant in our garden last year that gave a pretty good yield, so they knew what to look for (not the green ones!) and that you have to look under the leaves sometimes.
Will found the task of bending over to pick the berries far too much trouble. He preferred to sit himself down in the middle of a row and grab what he could from that position. Ben couldn't resist tasting a few while filling his bucket, and in the end, neither could Will.
Ella Rose chose to sleep through this adventure, but woke up as we enjoyed our bounty in the car.


How lucky are we to have access to local, (almost) organic produce that we harvest ourselves??? The children get to see where our food comes from, and although we didn't get to meet the farmer, they have at least an idea that there is one. And at $1.50 a pound, a fantastic bargain, no less! Ambrose Farms will definitely be seeing us again.
But not until we finish off our 10 pounds of strawberries. eeep.

Photos from Chicago

Check out my sister's blog here for more photos from our trip home.
We took all the kids to the Picture People studio for a portrait for Grandma's (BIG) birthday. Mimi's got 'em up. My copies have yet to be unpacked. So, go there. Tell her I sent you.

http://mimisphotos2008.blogspot.com/

Snow!

We are so lucky!! Grandma started a snowman for us the day before we arrived. There was just enough of the white stuff left for us to finish him off. He didn't last long, but he was loved while he was here.

There are more snow photos on my photo-a-day blog, here.

Sweet Home

We're heading back to ChicagoLand next week for a visit. Mark has to travel to Yuma for work, so the children and I are going to spend some quality time with Grandma and Papa. We're all driving home together, then Mark will fly to AZ from O'Hare. It's a long drive--about 17 hours. That estimate is really conservative, too, considering it does not take into account wee babies with wee bladders who will need feeding, watering, and exercising (not to mention referee-ing, cleaning, empathizing, and cuddling.) This will be Ella Rose's first road trip. She is generally pretty content in the car, as long as she is fed, dry, and not over-tired. We're not pushing our luck, though, so this will be a 2-day trip. The half-way mark is Nashville, where we'll hang out with Kiki (Kiersten) and Randy, who have graciously allowed us to use their driveway as a rest stop when we came through last with the RV (and that is another story...). No RV this time, though, so we'll get to mess up the guest room. :)

Change is hard. Especially for Ben. He benefits from lots of warning of 'things to come'. We remind him Sunday morning that the next day is Monday and Daddy will go back to work. He needs the time to process and get himself ready for the experience. Our trip will be Big Change for him. I figured I'd better start today in preparing him. It went down something like this:

Me: We're going to have a busy weekend, Ben.
Ben: (is circling between me on the couch, the chair by the window, and the fireplace "it's hot, be careful" he says often)
Me: In 2 days, that's Friday, we're going to get in the car..."
Ben: in the car!
Me: Right. And we're going for a loooooong drive.
Ben: a looooooooong drive.
Me: And when we stop, we're going to be at Kiki's house!
Ben: (excited) Kiki's house!
Me: We're going to sleep at Kiki's house...
Ben: then go back to our new house!
Me: no, no. We're going to sleep at Kiki's house and when we wake up we'll play with Kiki. And then we'll get back in the car again...
Ben: and go back to our new house!? (getting nervous, pacing)
Me: nooo, not our new house. We're going to take another looooooong drive to Grandma and Papa's house!
Ben: Papa's house!
Me: Right. We'll get to see Grandma and Papa and Auntie Anna...
Ben: and Kiki...
Me: Well, yes, but not at Papa's house. We'll see Kiki first, then we'll go see Grandma and Papa.
Ben: Then we'll go back to our new house. (furrowed brow, wringing of hands)
Me: We're going to stay at Grandma's for 8 days.
Ben: No!! Go back to the new house!!
Me: Oh, Ben, I know you're nervous, but we're going to have so much fun at Grandma and Papa's. It's cold there and there may be snow. We'll see Auntie Mimi and your cousins. Maybe we can go to the zoo or the museum. Remember the library right by Grandma's house? We can go get some books and puzzles...
Ben: Dadda? (really really nervous, high pitched voice, troubled face)
Me: Hmm. Well, Dadda is going to go to work when we're there. He's going to go on a plane... (thinking, and yet ignoring "abort! abort! Information overload! Shut up now!)
Ben: Go on a plane with Dadda?!? (nearing hysterics)
Me: Um, no, Buddy, Dadda has to go to work. We're going to stay at Grandma and Papa's house.
Ben: (starts to cry) NOOO!! Dadda go to work!! (runs around hitting things--the chair, the pillow, falls to the ground) Go back to the new house!! AAAAHHHHH!!!

At this point, our conversation ends as Will needs help with something in the other room. Ben becomes distracted from his meltdown by this interruption and seems to get it together more quickly than usual and on his own.

Several minutes later, I'm feeding the baby when Ben approaches me and says out of the blue, "snowman?"
With that gift of knowing context where there is none offered (that I, apparently, was given when I became a mama) I respond with a smile, "you bet! If there's snow at Grandma's house, we'll definitely make a snowman!"

So, how cool is that?

In the afternoon, we went to the GoodWill and bought mittens.

On the Spectrum

This is Ben. He is 3 and 3 quarter years old. He is a big brother. He loves cars and trucks. He enjoys music and singing (lately, the Beatles.) And he has an autism spectrum disorder.

Okay, so that's how I originally was going to start this post. But, seriously. Over-the-top dramatic is just not my thing. I mean, hey, I can *do* dramatic, but then that's all it is--drama--not the real thing. And Ben is absolutely the real thing. He's not dying of malaria and in need of your help. (Just pennies a day can feed his whole village!) He's not pathetic nor requiring your sympathy. He's just a guy with some incomplete, wayward neural pathways. You might call it 'neurologically atypical'.

What used to be just "autism" is now ASD. The spectrum refers to the wide and varied ways the Big A can effect a person. Some people with ASD have no verbal language, others talk non-stop. Some are "locked in their own world" while others are very social. Whatever "symptom" you can describe in one person, can be demonstrated with the opposite in another. With such variance you might think that Autism is just a throw-away category for what would otherwise be called "quirky" or "delayed" or "we don't have a name for that, let's check this box". And yet. Once you have a little bit of experience with someone with this diagnosis, you can recognize it and call it out in another almost immediately.

As a teacher I never could quite put my finger on what it was that made it so clear when a child walked in the room that they were, without a doubt, On the Spectrum. Whatever it was, I couldn't just claim it as my "special gift" for long-range, armchair dignosis, as others in my field (early childhood intervention we're talking here, so teachers, therapists, social workers, etc.) could see it, too. It's how "On the Spectrum" came to be (at least, how it did in my world). It was a description of the indescribable. A label for the unlabelable (not a word, I'm sure, but you know what I mean). "On the Spectrum" was a way to categorize a collection of symptoms or behaviors that were not necessarily always present, nor did they look exactly the same from one person to the next. It wasn't and isn't a catch-all, though. There are definite "traits" or similarities among behaviors that are a clear indicator that something, some things, are *missing*.

And that, right there, is the crux of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The "what's missing" is what I know now as the "core deficits" of Autism, as defined by Dr. Steven Gutstein, the founder of Relationship Development Intervention or RDI. The deficits are the same for people across the spectrum, even if their "symptoms" look completely different. Rigid thinking, aversion to change, inability to understand other's perspectives, failure to empathize, and absolute, "black and white thinking" are the things I couldn't put my finger on. It's not that I didn't know students that were lacking in these areas, I did. I never put them all together and realized these were issues for *all* of the kids with autism I knew. As I said before, they don't look the same from one person to the next--one person's shy, withdrawn behavior is another's aggressive lashing out is another's echolaic language and repetitive play...

The problem with school and special education school, especially, is that so much time is spent on BEHAVIOR. Managing, controlling, planning, shaping, and correcting. Whatever B.F. Skinner may say, people are made up of more good stuff than just how they respond to stimulus 'x'. The important part of what's behind the behavior, or what causes it gets glossed over in favor of the more pressing issue of MAKING IT STOP or making it happen RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I SAID SO. Skinner's operant conditioning experiments with rats, levers and pellets of food never sat well with me as being appropriately applied to human beings. People are just way more complex than that.

My distrust of Behaviorism (technically, Radical Behaviorism) did not bode well for finding early intervention services for Ben. I simply refused to hand him over to therapists or teachers who would "reward" his developmental gains with skittles and stickers, or expose him to continuous loops of "good job!" And preschool? Let's just say being on the other side of the desk, per se, has given me a whole new perspective on how I feel about small children with social deficits being thrown into a large group of peers to "learn social skills". It's far more important to me that Ben learn about relationships with the people he already has a connection with, people who accept and love him--his family. He has plenty of time to learn how to develop relationships with strangers and frankly, I don't believe you can do the latter well without the framework and foundation of the former.

Enter RDI. A brief stroll through the website was like a breath of fresh air. The "program" is family-based. The principles are squarely based on current brain research and the goal is not for children to learn to adapt, to learn "skills" for survival in a world that is forever changing the rules on them, but for REMEDIATION. That's right. Going back and "doing over" what was missed in the first go-around in development. But the best part is 'how' this is done. It's not with skills and drills, artificial "reinforcements", or within an unfamiliar environment (which then, has to be transferred to other settings or "generalized"). RDI takes place in our home and is facilitated by US (Mark and I). The developmental goals we have for Ben will be fulfilled within our daily routines. You can't get a more natural setting than our home, nor does "rapport" need to be established as we are already The Most Important People in his little life. There is an entire Operating System in place chock full of information in multiple media forms--print, video, podcasts, online community, scheduled chats with Dr. Gutstein himself, webinars (that's an electronic seminar), access to the thousands of goals and objectives that make up the developmental steps for filling in those core deficits... And that's just the beginning. Our consultant, April, provides ongoing support and guidance, as well as performing Ben's initial evaluation/assessment.

The focus on attachment and connection in RDI speaks to my core. The control freak in me is also very pleased to be "in charge". God bless the Internet for offering the opportunities of this program to whomever has access. RDI was not widely available just ten years ago and mere serendipity brought it into my sightline. Building new neural pathways is a challenge we are looking forward to. We're excited and optimistic for positive changes in our Ben. We'll begin in earnest after Ben's initial evaluation/assessment at the end of March.

This post is a lengthy one and I thank you for reading along.

As we're perched on the cusp of this new journey, documentation seemed in order. I'll keep you posted.

This is how she rolls...

A quick little movie of our newly mobile baby. And narrated with my incredibly high-pitched "motherese".

Rats. Now I can't leave her on the couch or bed feeling reasonably sure she won't roll off.
They just keep growing, these babies. Harumph.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Check it out:

http://www.photoshow.net/kayserfamily

Feeling the Art

I pulled out the easel today with brushes and cups of red, blue, and yellow paint. Ben has painted on an easel before, but it was Will's first time. For those who don't know or maybe, don't remember :), painting on an upright, eye level surface is a totally different experience than painting on a tabletop. You can get your whole body involved when you paint at the easel. There's much less physical "stuff"--chairs, tables, elbows--to navigate; nothing interfering in the space between you and your work. Looking at your media straight on lets you get "close and personal" with what you're doing. And there is something very satisfying about furniture that is just your size. Especially when most of the things in your world are fit for much larger sized grown-up people. Easel painting is one of the best ways to really FEEL art.
Ben jumped in right away, as he's done this before, you know. Calling out color names as he feverishly moved his brushes into and out of the cups and onto the paper was his mode of operation. Very quickly after starting in, one of the most exciting, natural paint discoveries was made and announced with arms a-flailing, "GREEN!!" Man, I love those moments.

Will, the easel painting newbie, started in slow and with much wonder. He also happened to have the side of the easel that the sun was shining directly on. Perfect for gazing at the slippery paint as he made it glide across the paper in both vertical and horizontal paths. He even attempted some circles. His strokes were deliberate and all about the feel of it. It was really fun to watch him experience the joy of paint.

After a while, they both got brave and experimented with different ways of interacting with their media. Ben used his fingers and Will fearlessly took on the double-handed, cross-over brush maneuver. Whee! We just may have to do this every day.